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Friday, June 18, 2010

Favorite Movie of the Year

Yes, it's only half way but I thought I'd mention what my favorite movie of the year is.

It is actually a movie I watched nearly *8* years ago. And we have watched a few, albeit not a lot, of movies in recent weeks.

District 9 - this was better than I anticipated *but* not at all inline with the mental model I had in my head. I'm not entirely a Peter Jackson fanatic, although I am not an anti-Peter Jackson guy either. I saw Lord of the Rings (the first one) and I'm not a fan of the genre. King Kong was decent. Dead Alive was just weird. Heavenly Creatures, however, is one of my all-time favorite movies and has made me a forever Kate Winslet fan.

Avatar - this definitely did not fare better than I expected. While visually nice, and Neytiri was an amazing character in the flick, the whole thing has been done before. This is not original! It's like every fricking, blockbuster Hollywood movie ever made. Overblown. Overdone. And Overdramatic. It was so cliche. So cheeeeeesy! I am so done with James Cameron. Aliens was one of the scariest movies ever and The Terminator, while very outdated, was one of the best movies ever created. But I HATED Titanic (and am so glad Avatar did not steal the Oscars this year...it didn't deserve it). The Abyss was NOT all that and this? Technologically? OK, I give him that, COOOL. But man, I'll take Pixar any day over this and Cameron himself. I just hate that I spent $5.95 to watch 3 hours of my life disappear in blue...

The Lovely Bones - ah...Peter Jackson directed this one. I was so excited about it, especially with Peter Jackson at the helm. I read the book. The book is one of the most amazing, original books of its time. I still have perspective moments that I gathered from the book that I apply to my life. But the movie SUCKED. It was not good. At all. I didn't even think Stanley Tucci brought anything amazing to the story, since he was nominated for an Oscar. Another long one...and so sad that it didn't deliver the beauty that the book did.

So my favorite movie of the year thus far?

Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Tim and I watched it for the second time. Tim had no idea he had seen it before.

It stands the test of time and is one of the most visually amazing movies I've seen. From the first few minutes, I was entranced and I remember being blown away by it the first time I saw it.

It's a French movie, so yes, there are subtitles. I lost my children on that one.

But there's some action fit for any guy, and a bit of intrigue for any mystery buff. It's historical fiction set during the 1700s. A small French province is being terrorized by a beast. The royal taxidermist (yes, you read that correctly) is sent to capture the beast. Alongside that storyline, we learn about his American Indian partner, Mani, and the young beautiful Marianne, daughter of the local count.

I love this movie and I am so glad I decided to grab it from Netflix. I thought it would be a good "horror" movie for the girls to watch but it's not scary, but interesting. The story is intriguing, the cinematography is to-die-for, and the accents are swoonful. It's hard to believe that someone managed to make this movie in 2001.

3 comments:

I saw the post title and initially sort of skimmed through the post, just looking for your favorite. I saw "Lovely Bones" and thought to myself, "OMG! I can't believe she liked that awful movie!! It was horrible!" I was quite relieved when I actually read the whole post and realized we agreed on that one! The book was fabulous, and I think it had the potential to translate to a good movie, but they did a horrible job with it.

i can't believe you hate titanic! (-:i agree that the lovely bones book was amazing and wonderful. it got ahold of me and wouldn't let go. i have seen trailers for the movie and it looked...weird, and i couldn't quite imagine that they would be able to capture the essence of the book in the movie. sounds like it didn't. based on you and ann's comments, i think i'll skip that one.

Avatar was extremely cliche...but I loved it anyway. Well, I love everything up until Jake attacks the bulldozers. Then it gets boring. I've never seen the Titanic.I love Lord of the Rings, but didn't really like The Lovely Bones, and I don't think I've seen any other PJ movies.I'm really looking forward to Toy Story 3, which I might go see today or later this week.